“Look,” he said, offering a laminated sheet for my approval. “You need to buy one of these. It has Jesus, you see, here, at the top, and almost all the Saints.”
If he was disappointed when I demurred he didn’t show it. Laying his cane against the wall, the man slowly closed the steel collar around his neck. Muttering soft prayers, he wrapped himself in the ancient chain.
No, I hadn’t walked in on a deleted scene from the Da Vinci Code. I was in the depths of the Convent of St. George in Old Cairo’s Coptic Quarter and my erstwhile salesman was undoubtedly hoping to reap the curative benefits of the chain of St. George. Here are the Copts, the Egyptian Orthodox Christians, who birthed monasticism, housed the Holy Family, and are (probably) responsible for adapting the contemporary Christian cross from the Egyptian Ankh to boot.
This is the kind of ritual that could drive me to tears, to the loony bin, or both. While it is highly likely this man cannot afford the medical care he needs (his gait was hobbled quite severely), he’s spending his time wrapping himself in a chain. As far as I’m concerned, he could have pulled an E-Meter from his pocket and sung a hymn to Tom Cruise.
But the situation is more than a bit depressing considering that this is most likely this man’s sustaining hope. There are plenty of irrational hopes that sustain all of us, even the Free Thinkers, across our emotional pursuits, and who am I to say my irrationalities are more or less benign than anyone else’s at such a quotidian level?
I need to salve some serious cognitive dissonance here: Can I be in awe of this man’s devotion while bemoaning the enterprise?
I think the answer is yes. As I learned quite severely while talking to Palestinian Jordanians, people will lose their national connection, their physical property, maybe even their immediate livelihood, but they will not surrender their dignity. While the Palestinians delved into their Muslim identities, this man was engaging his Christian heritage – shoring up his pride, asserting that even though his government and his people see him as a cripple he can in fact influence the contour of his life by plaintively approaching a holy symbol.
In some sense, I am more sympathetic to this man’s work than what goes on across the Mediterranean. While the more famous chains of St. Peter are living it up in Rome, the chains of St. George sit underneath a 8.5 – 11 inch sign printed with mid-90’s publishing software (“Here Are The Chains of St. George The Roman”) and what can best be described as a mechanized portrait, a plastic likeness of St. George indifferently spearing a quaking dragon ten times a minute for all time. (I kid you not.)
It is an earnest, honest act for this man to descend to this rather shoddy shrine and bare his heart to his God. For a moment, he is holy. It is a sincerity that I surely struggle to match.
Comments (2)
mr grant- what a sincere and deep level of compassion and maturity you exhibit.
its a pleasure for me to make this observation-
people accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of-
in this case- you are crediting another with what you yourself are in posession of.
mashalla
peace to you in your journey
Posted September 26, 2007 6:14 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 06:14
mr grant- what a sincere and deep level of compassion and maturity you exhibit.
its a pleasure for me to make this observation-
people accuse others of what they themselves are guilty of-
in this case- you are crediting another with what you yourself are in posession of.
peace to you in your journey
Posted September 26, 2007 6:13 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 06:13